For Forever
by Sonamyluver718
Summary: "All we see is sky for forever. Let the world pass by for forever. Feels like we could go on for forever this way. Two friends on a perfect day."


**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

 **I wrote this short story on a whim last night and wanted to share...**

 **Inspired by "Dear Evan Hansen" (soundtrack because I'm too broke to see the play)**

 **For Forever**

He was always smiling. He was always laughing. He was always energized. He was always looking on the bright side of things. He was always happy. He was my best friend. He was the light in my dark world. He was the only person I never wanted to let go of. He was my favorite person. Ever since we were five years old.

He moved into the big house across the street from me during one hot summer day. I was swinging outside on my playset in the front yard when the huge U-Haul truck rumbled to a stop in front of the big blue house an old man and his teenage daughter used to live. They had moved out a couple weeks prior because the daughter was going off to college and the old man had to learn to move on from the life he once knew. I'd heard the neighbors talking about it during one of the cookouts we'd had to give them a neighborly farewell. None of them thought a new family would move in so soon – especially since the house was the most expensive of the block. I sat on my swing, and watched as a young couple and a small child pile out of the U-Haul. I watched them quietly from a distance as they took turns carrying things in. All of them laughed throughout the whole day; the father continually picked his son and wife up to spin them around, and the wife with her bulging belly did her best to supervise and assist at the same time. The three of them reminded me of the families I'd see in my cartoons on the television. A jovial father, a sweet mother, and a smiling child. I wished my family could be more like them.

He didn't notice me for a couple weeks. I hid in the shadows on my yard on my swings or sat in the tall trees in my backyard and watched him from a distance. He liked to run and play with a soccer ball. He'd spend hours under the hot sun chasing his checkered ball around his front yard. Sometimes he'd stop and look in my direction as if he could feel my eyes watching from afar. However, we never made eye contact. His gaze was lost in the moment of thought for just a second /before he'd resume his solo game. The first time we met had been an accident. I was wandering around in the field behind our block. I must have wandered over near his house where the tallest trees were. I was climbing up one of them when his friendly voice startled me; my grip loosened and I fell on top of him. He'd laughed under my body weight and said "I never thought my new friend would fall out of the sky." I'd stared at him, confused that he wasn't stunned from the impact like I was. He'd smiled at me with dimples and a mouthful of small teeth. "I'm Sonic," he'd told me as he held out his hand. "What's your name?" I hesitated to tell him, but I let my name awkwardly slip from my lips. His eyes widened at my foreign accent – and my abnormal name – but not from surprise or confusion; instead, he was impressed. "That's awesome!" He exclaimed causing me to flinch away from him. "Can you speak a different language?" I'd nodded and his smile grew. "Wow. That's so cool!" I almost flinched away again when he grabbed my hand and tugged me back towards the open yards. "Come on," he encouraged me. "We're gonna be friends." And so we were.

He didn't leave my side for the next couple of years. The first summer, we were inseparable. Every morning, he would knock on my door with his soccer ball in hand and his friendly smile on his face. We'd go out to his front yard and kick the ball around for hours before his mother called us in for a snack – then we'd rush back out under the hot sun and continue our small game together. In school, we were in the same classroom. He gravitated to me during the first couple weeks because I was the only face he knew. I'd enjoyed having him to myself in the beginning, but I knew it wouldn't last. Within a month of being in a new school, he acquired a friendship with almost everyone in the class. I'd slowly drifted away from him; I wasn't much of a people person, and the other kids never took the time to understand my thick accent so I kept quiet. He didn't like our slight separation. "You can't hide all the time," he'd told me one day as he pulled me towards the crowd of kids on the playground.

"I don't fit in," I'd replied.

"Of course you do. You have a wicked accent and eyes as red as the slide; you stand out – that's a good thing." He offered me a soft smile. "You'll never fit in if you keep hiding in those trees. You've got to let people see you." I smiled unsurely back at him as he continued to tug me towards the monkey bars. I watched as he easily climbed on top of the bars. He shot me his encouraging smile, his emerald eyes sparkling under the sun. I followed him up onto the monkey bars, but he ran away to create a new game of tag between the two of us. That was the way I liked it best – when it was just the two of us.

He never stopped being my friend as the years went on. Every summer, we'd spend every waking day together and during the school year, he'd try to get me out of my shell and talk to all the new friends he easily attained. However, with each year that passed, I became more closed into myself and he flourished into a social butterfly. Sometimes I contemplated telling him about my problems at home. I wanted to tell him about my mother's sad eyes and my father's harsh hands. I wanted to tell him about the bruises I hid under my clothes. I wanted to tell him about my struggle with my will to live. I wanted to tell him everything I hid under my "wicked accent" and "eyes as red as the slide." I just didn't know how. I didn't think he would understand. He was filled with joy and light whereas I was empty and dark. With our drastic differences, I was lucky he was interested in me at all. Yet, there was an ache in my chest to tell him why I was so introverted. I felt as though he deserved an explanation to my strange behavior. I wanted him to know the real person he was taking under his wing. I wanted him to know I was broken with no idea of what could be fixed. I wanted him to give up on me, and I wanted him to fix me all at once.

He didn't learn my secret until we were twelve. It was summer, and we were playing around by the trees around his house. About twenty minutes before, he'd started a race between the two of us which thus turned into a wrestling match when he'd tackled me to the ground after I'd won. We were rolling around in the grass, laughing and trying to win the impromptu match. He'd pinned me down to the ground when I'd winced; I'd landed right on one of my bruised ribs. His face twisted into sincere concern as he cautiously lifted up the side of my shirt to inspect the damage. His eyes widened in an unfamiliar way as he saw the large bruise covering my tanned skin. "What happened," he exclaimed. "I couldn't have done that! Did I?"

"No, no," I assured him. "I fell out of a tree the other day." His lips turned into a soft frown as he gently ran his fingertips over my bruise. I winced at the pain from his touch, and he immediately pulled his hand away.

"What happened," he asked again, his tone hard. I tried to avoid his eyes, but he pinned my wrists over my head and put his face in mine. "What happened," he repeated. I feigned a glare at him as I lied through my teeth again.

"I fell out of a tree. Now get off." I attempted to wiggle under him, but his grip was firm on my wrists. "Sonic-"

"Don't hide from me," he snapped. "It's bad enough you hide from everyone else, but you _cannot_ hide from me; I won't let you hide from me. Now tell me." I sighed, my ruby eyes holding his emerald ones.

"My dad," I murmured so low he had to lean closer to hear me. "My dad isn't a very nice man, Sonic. He's very mean…he's very demanding…he's very intimidating…and he does not like me or my mother very much." He held my gaze for a moment before he slowly got off of me. He sat next to me in the grass, but for once he wasn't laughing or smiling. His mouth was slightly gaping, and his eyes were filled with an emotion I'd never knew existed in him. He had always been the light in my life; I never once thought he could harbor any type of darkness. We sat there together in the grass for a long moment before he finally looked to me.

"Will you sleep over tonight," he asked. "I don't want you to be alone." I nodded, and he smiled. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave a soft squeeze. Within the next second, I was wrapped in his arms. I froze in his tight embrace; I wasn't quite sure what to do. No one had ever shown me any type of affection like this before. Most times I'd show affection like this to my mother, but never to anyone else. A warm fire ignited in my stomach as I slowly wrapped my arms around him as well. "Please don't ever hide anything like that from me," he said as we were lounging in his living room watching a scary movie. He was sitting on the other side of the couch, a bowl of popcorn between us. I'd looked over at him to see a soft frown on his face. "Promise you won't hide from me ever again."

"I promise." Then he smiled and his light brightened my darkness once more.

He tried not to stray in high school. During freshman year, he joined the school's varsity soccer team and began to hang out with the jocks and cheerleaders. He dragged me along into popularity with him – or at least he tried to. He'd always call me over to sit with him at lunch and have me tag along with him to parties. He'd make sure I came to every game and hang out at the post-game celebrations. At first, I tried to be content with his efforts. He didn't mean to, but he'd usually drift away to his athletic friends while I remained in the corner. None of his new friends ever tried to talk to me or try to help me feel as if I wasn't an outsider in the group. They all usually talked around me and ignored my presence as a whole. Sometimes they'd acknowledge me if Sonic brought me into the conversation or mention me, but it wasn't a daily occurrence. The uncomfortable and forced interactions made me fold into myself more than I ever had before. The same unwanted feeling I felt at home had followed me to school, and the only person who could wipe away the sadness was becoming another addition to its very source. I didn't blame him or resent him – how could I? He was trying to continue to tug me along in his life, but only I could see that our friendship wasn't going to last as long as we'd hoped it would.

He and I made it through our freshman and sophomore year ignoring the tension between us. I remained in his shadow as he dragged me to parties, games, lunch tables, and hang outs at his house. I thought I had been content with simply having him as my friend, but I wasn't. With each day I lived as his shadow, my empty heart hardened until it was completely made of stone. My light who had nourished and taken care of the darkness that threatened my soul was not doing its job anymore. The light was there yes, but it wasn't _there._ My home situation continued to escalate, my parents growing worse and worse each day, and I couldn't talk to him. My struggle with maintaining my darkness got harder, and he wasn't around to help me. My world was falling apart, and he didn't bat an eye. At the end of sophomore year, I stopped answering his calls.

He was not happy with my absence. I'd assumed he wouldn't care if I disappeared from his world; he had new, better friends who could take my place. I was surprised when he cared more than I expected him to. "What the hell," he'd yelled at me one summer day after I let him into my house. My eye was forming a dark bruise around it from my father's wrath the night before, and my eyes were red from all the angry tears I'd tried to hide from my mother. "Are you alright?" He tried to touch my bruise, but I slapped his hand away.

"I'm fine," I told him more harshly than I wanted to as I crossed my arms across my chest.

"You're obviously not fine! First, you don't answer my calls or my texts! Now you have a black eye! What's next? You gonna fall out of a tree head first?" I looked away from his angry green eyes. "Dammit, will you talk to me? Tell me what's going on! You promised you wouldn't hide from me again!"

"I'm not hiding," I said simply. "You're just not paying attention." He raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

"I'm not paying attention," he exclaimed. "Are you serious? We have been hanging out just like we have been for the past ten years!"

"No, you've been hanging out with your new buddies while I sit in the corner and contemplate my entire existence," I yelled back.

"No one's telling you to sit in the corner! I've always been the one trying to get you to be more sociable! I've always been the one inviting you out places! You say I'm not paying attention when you've been the one not paying attention! All you care about is how you feel! All you wanna do is sulk in the corner and think about death and darkness and how no one in this world is good enough for you to open up to!"

"That's not true!"

"Yes it is! That's why you can't make any damn friends! That's why I always have to take you everywhere to make sure you're getting your daily breath of fresh air! I'm the one holding your sorry ass together and I don't even get any credit for it!"

"No one asked you to hold me together! No one even asked you to be my friend! I know I definitely didn't!"

"Then why do you still hang around me then, huh? You're right; you didn't ask me to be your friend or to be your rock. You didn't ask me to do anything for you, but I did it anyway because I thought we were best friends. Best friends take care of each other – best friends look out for each other." His voice softened as he took a step closer to me. "You're my best friend. We're always gonna be best friends, and I'm always going to be here for you. I will always be here."

"Why," I asked before I could think about the argument that would follow. "I'm not best friend material. I'm an abused, PTSD, depressed piece of shit, and you…you are Superman who is good at everything, who likes everyone, who is loved by everyone, and who tries to save everyone. I get that you're trying to save me, Sonic, but you can't save me like this. You're not making things better by dragging me around like I'm an action figure you can't seem to leave behind; you're only causing more damage than there already was."

"So letting you go will make some of the pain go away," he asked. "Letting you go will make you feel a tiny bit better about yourself? Losing your only friend will help you? Is that what you're telling me?"

"I didn't say it like that. I just…I need you to be more considerate of me. I am an introvert, and you're an extrovert. I am damaged goods, and you're a shiny new toy. We are two very different people, and I cannot live the life you do. I know you want me to, but I can't…that's not who I am. I like being your friend, but I don't like you trying to make me everyone's friend – especially when it's obviously not wanted."

"Okay," he said as he let out a sigh. "I'll be more considerate. I…I'm sorry." He slowly walked towards me and cautiously wrapped me into an embrace. "I'm sorry," he repeated. I forgave him that day with hopes there would be heart to hearts like this to come.

He stopped coming around after that day. Occasionally I'd see him hanging out with his soccer buddies and the cheerleaders on his front porch, but he didn't make eye contact with me when I'd walk by on the sidewalk. He didn't smile at me when he'd see me pass by as he was alone playing with his soccer ball in his front yard. He didn't wave at me when we'd see each other in the little stores around town. For the first time, he didn't acknowledge me at all. We lived like this for the next year or so. We'd pass by each other in the hallways and on the street like we'd never talked a day in our life. Sometimes we'd make eye contact, and I could feel his green eyes soften at the sight of me, but other times his eyes would harden and he'd shoot me a glare. I wasn't sure what I'd done to hurt him. All I'd done was speak up for myself as to make some of my pain ease the slightest bit. He should've been happy for me – shouldn't he?

With my light completely absent from my life, my stone heart began to crack and wither away from the darkness in my life. At school, I cut myself off from everyone and focused on my school work. At home, I was beaten and torn down by my father. In both worlds, I was completely alone. My mother died the summer before senior year; my father was in another rage and he'd all but thrown her down the steps. He managed to maintain to the police it was an accident, and I was stupid enough to lie for him in fear I would be next. Sonic didn't come to my mother's funeral nor did he send me any of his personal condolences. I couldn't bring myself to care. My mother was dead, my father had killed her, and I was dangling on a thin strand. My mental health was at an all-time low by the time senior year rolled along. My father's rage was now centered on me since my mother was no longer around, and I wasn't considering going to college. I had other plans for the end of the school year. I was going to graduate, and then I was going to hide in a place where no one could ever find me.

He looked at me on graduation day, and smiled. We were both sitting on the stage for academic awards when he looked over at me and shot me his familiar smile. I'd held his glittering gaze for a moment before I looked away. I had a task to do after I left with my diploma in my hand; I couldn't let him wiggle his way back into my world and distract me from what I knew was best for me – not after two years of complete silence.

I easily managed to weave my way through the crowds of people at the end of the ceremony. I didn't have any friends to say goodbye to or any teachers I wanted to spare a good word with. I only had me and my personal achievement of finishing high school. I walked home in my cap and gown only to strip it off like it was on fire when I got to my room. I headed back outside to slip a note under Sonic's front door. Then I walked to the tall trees behind our block. I walked for about a half an hour to the deepest depths of the woods and the tallest trees I'd ever seen. I picked one with the most branches, and I climbed as high as I possibly could. The hot sun beat down on my face as I reached the very top, and for a moment I was reminded of the warmth I used to feel when I was younger. I stood on the branch for a moment, wondering if this was what I really wanted for myself. I'd been accepted to a few colleges; I could get out of my household for a while; I could get better. But were things truly going to get better? I didn't have time to answer my own questions before the branch gave way from underneath my feet. The air blew softly through my hair, and I felt as if I were flying – I felt as if I were free. Or I did for at least a moment before my body hit the ground and pain roared through my body. My vision blurred as my head began to throb. I'd hit it on something – a rock perhaps. I hoped the darkness would take me away soon; I was tired of existing.

His voice echoed through the consuming darkness like a dream. My eyes were focused on the blue sky above me; the color reminded me of his hair. Within a moment, his eyes met with mine. They were filled with panicked tears and fear. "Hey, hey, hey," he said as he carefully held me in his arms. I tried to speak, but my body was too weak. I was tired; I wanted to go to sleep. "Everything is going to be okay," he said as tears continued to fall down his face. "I saw you fall; the ambulance is on their way; you're going to be okay. Just hold on. Can you do that for me? Hold on."

His voice was the last thing I heard before the darkness fully consumed me, and his face was the first thing I saw when the darkness released me. I was lying in a hospital bed with a broken arm, leg, and concussion – and his hand wrapped tightly around mine. He stayed quiet as the doctor examined my vitals and explained to me the conditions of my injuries. Once we were alone, he was silent for a moment. "I read your letter," he murmured. His hand tightened around mine. "I…I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," I replied. "I survived; nothing I wrote matters anymore."

"It does matter," he said. "It matters to me."

"Why," I asked. "We…we haven't talked in years."

"Because I've missed you…I missed us. You're my best friend; you're always gonna be my best friend – no one can ever replace you." He shook his head. "I'm sorry for hiding from you. I know I spent years scolding you about it just for me to do the same thing. I just…I thought you needed space, but you didn't. You just wanted me…and I was too stupid to see that. I was too stupid to see I was the only person you care about…the only person you trusted enough to open up to."

"Don't," I groaned. "Don't replay the letter to me." He smiled.

"I love you too; you should know that." He leaned down to kiss my forehead. "Don't forget it, either." I almost smiled. "Don't ever do that again," he murmured against my skin. "Promise you won't ever do that again."

"I promise," I replied. He smiled as he leaned his head on mine.

"We'll be friends forever, won't we?"

"Of course. For forever and ever."

 **Review if y'all want**


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